Deep Discouter Festive (bit late!) Wine Bargains - Part 2

I did manage to pop into Aldi this holiday. I wasn't as impressed as when I visited Lidl but there were some wines that definitely piqued my interest. I had to try their £10.99 Champagne, the eternal question, is there such a thing as a really good cheap Champagne? Well, umm, not really in this case. This was drunk that same evening (I'm a fast worker when I want to be!) and it wasn't bad but there was nothing particularly interesting or exciting about it. I would have rather spent the same amount of money on a really good Cava where I could have picked up some complexity. This had aromas and flavours of cooking apple and that was about it, quite coarse bubbles and a short length. However if you want to have a Champagne party on a budget, it'll do.



The other wines I was intrigued by were, no surprises, mostly French and from regions I am pretty familiar with. I have purchased the following but not yet tried them and will be reviewing them as I do. If any are worth grabbing I will let you know.


 

The Limoux Chardonnay is £6.99 and I have had some fabulous Chardonnay from there thanks to it's slightly cooler climate in the hills and the generous use of new oak. The Costières de Nîmes is £4.79 and should be a nice rich Southern Rhône with black and red fruit and a touch of pepper. The Pinot Noir from Marlborough New Zealand should be light red fruit flavours with some oak but it is young as a 2014. It is £6.99. Having said that one of my favourite Pinot Noirs is from Marlborough, New Zealand. It probably would have gone well with turkey (sorry, bit late for that!). So as you can see two of those wines are from Aldi's Exquisite Collection. Currently the head wine buyer at Aldi is Mike James. He was named as the most influential person in wine in 2015 by offlicencenews.com. This is because of his influence on the sales of supermarket wine, selling a small selection of wines at a large volume so being able to sell them more cheaply. He is definitely making Waitrose and Tesco sit up and take note after Aldi's recent surge of sales. Here is an interesting excerpt about him from offlicencenews.com.

"His background couldn’t be further removed from the wine trade’s old guard. A doctor of philosophy, conservation and ecology, he spent more time writing his PhD on the world’s smallest butterfly than studying for the WSET two-year wine diploma course.

He gave up a job as a school lab assistant to join Aldi in 2004 as an area manager and became wine buying director in 2010.

Five years on, aged just 41, he has created a more significant impact than many of the wine trade’s great personalities.

His mantra is to cater for shoppers who want what he describes as “X-Factor wines”, bottles consumers can enjoy on the sofa on a Saturday night. It’s an honest approach that might not chime with attitudes long-held by some in the industry, but it’s caused crashing waves in the commercial wine landscape."

Another interesting fact is that the wine and spirits team at Aldi just consists of two people, himself and one other. Now if that isn't a true money saving strategy I don't know what is!